Proteins and other molecules with potential commercial value—for use as food ingredients (e.g., rubisco, seed-storage proteins, leghemoglobin), industrial enzymes (e.g., papain, bromelain, etc.), structural materials or pharmaceuticals are present in commercially useful quantities in natural sources. Purity of the protein or other molecule can be important for optimal utility.
The rarity of commercial sources of pure plant, animal or microbial proteins highlights an existing need in the art for general, scalable methods of efficiently and economically purifying proteins or other molecules from a crude solution.